By Susan A. Baird
PBN Web Editor
PAWTUCKET – Narragansett Bay Insurance Co. and affiliates today announced the closing of $200 million in funding from private equity firms Pine Brook Capital Partners L.P., Soros Strategic Partners L.P. and RenaissanceRe Holdings Ltd. The deal is subject to the approval of the R.I. Department of Business Regulation.
The property insurer emerged from the wreckage of the failed Pawtucket Mutual Insurance Co. after that company was acquired from the DBR in December 2005 by Blackstone Financial Group Inc., NBIC’s parent company.
“When we took over the business, we found a strong operational core that we could build on,” said Stewart H. “Nick” Steffey Jr., who is the chairman and CEO of Narragansett Bay Insurance and the president and CEO of Blackstone Financial, where he was the founding shareholder. Since then, he said, “We have refocused the company, providing a solution for homeowners who have experienced disruption in the marketplace and who are looking for superior products and service.”
“We’re focused on tailoring coverage to individual needs, regardless of where our insureds are located,” said Geoffrey E. Hunt, the company’s executive vice president and treasurer. “NBIC is offering consistent coverage in catastrophe-prone areas where some competitors have exited.”
“We’re here to cover loss, but we’re also here to prevent loss,” added Albert J. Pereira, the insurer’s president and chief underwriting officer. “Our focus is on risk management and loss prevention, and we will strive to become an industry leader in these important areas.”
Pawtucket Mutual had been suffering large losses before it was taken over by the DBR in May 2003. By the time Blackstone Financial stepped in to buy the company two years later, the company no longer had any insurance policies active.
Steffey and his partners turned Pawtucket Mutual into a stock company, renamed it Pawtucket Insurance Co., and in the spring of 2006, began selling insurance policies through Narragansett Bay.
“I think it’s the first time in Rhode Island, and maybe the Northeast, that a company has come back from rehabilitation,” state Insurance Supt. Joseph L. Torti III, associate director of the DBR, told Providence Business News later that year. (READ MORE.)
The new infusion of capital – if approved by the DBR – “will be used to grow the company’s homeowners’ business along the Eastern seaboard, insuring both coastal and inland properties and offering new options to homeowners in these large but challenged markets,” NBIC said in announcing the deal with Pine Brook, Soros and RenRe.
“This investment will enable us to enter new markets and provide coverage for even more homeowners,” Steffey said.
Narragansett Bay Insurance Co. and Pawtucket Insurance Co., founded in 1848 as Pawtucket Mutual Fire Insurance Co., are members of the Pawtucket Insurance Group, a subsidiary of Blackstone Financial Group Inc. NBIC is a provider of property insurance, risk-management and loss-prevention services to homeowners, tenants and landlords in Rhode Island, Massachusetts and New York. To learn more, visit www.NBIC.com.
For additional information about Pine Brook Road Partners LLC, a private equity firm founded in New York in 2006, visit www.pinebrookpartners.com. Information about Soros Strategic Partners L.P., a Delaware corporation, is available from the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission at www.SECinfo.com. To learn more about RenaissanceRe Holdings Ltd. (NYSE: RNR), a global provider of insurance and reinsurance against natural and man-made catastrophes that was founded in Bermuda in 1993, visit www.renre.com.
